Topicalization and the Processing of Expository Prose by Children: mediating effects of cognitive styles and content familiarity

This study assessed the effects of text topicalization conditions (initial position, final position, or no topic sentence) on the comprehension of main ideas and specific passage information for middle school readers. Also of interest were interactions of topic familiarity and readers’ cognitive styles (degree of field independence) with text topicalization. One hundred and seven subjects were randomly assigned to one of the three topicalization conditions and read three familiar and three less‐familiar multipleparagraph expository texts. Main idea comprehension was assessed with both a sentencesummary (generation) and best‐title (recognition) task. Comprehension of specific passage information was evaluated with multiple‐choice items. Text topicalization effects were observed for main idea comprehension (with initial position best, followed by final position), while topic familiarity resulted in higher comprehension scores for specific passage information. Moreover, a cognitive style‐text topicalization interaction was found on the best‐title task; in this case, relatively field dependent readers were assisted by a final topic sentence placement. Implications are drawn for future research concerning the complex interplay of texts, tasks and readers in prose‐processing.     

Raising the bar on studying cultural evolution

Sasaki and Biro (2017, Nature Communications, 8, 15049) show that pairs of pigeons can increase the efficiency of their homing routes over several ‘generations’ in which pair members are gradually replaced by naïve birds. Their findings show that socially transmitted cumulative alterations of behavior are not unique to humans and suggest a way to examine potential mechanisms of cultural evolution.     

The New American School: preparation for post‐industrial discipline

In this article we consider how broad shifts in social relations over the past 30 years have given rise to new social control regimes in US public schools. We argue that the contemporary mechanisms of control engendered by mass incarceration and post‐industrialization have re‐shaped school discipline. To illustrate contemporary discipline in the ‘New American School,’ we discuss the emergence of police officers and technological surveillance in schools. These two strategies of school social control facilitate the link between courts and schools, and expose students to both the salience of crime control in everyday life and to the demands of workers in a post‐industrial world. By incorporating police officers and technological surveillance into the school safety regime, schools shape the experiences of students in ways that reflect modern relationships of dependency, inequality, and instability vis‐à‐vis the contemporary power dynamics of the post‐industrialist labor market and the neoliberal state.     

Mini-languages: a way to learn programming principles

Mini-languages are a visually intuitive, simple and powerful way to introduce students to programming. They are a good foundation for general computer science instruction, provide insight into programming for the general population, and teach algorithmic thinking. The goal of the paper is to provide an extensive review of the mini-language approach to teaching programming. For different audiences and in different countries, the authors have extensive experience in design and application of mini-languages. We outline the problems that motivate the application of this approach, present a brief history, review several existing mini-languages, and provide discussion of lessons learned. In particular, we discuss how to choose a mini-language for a particular group of students and list some requirements for a successful application of a mini- language. We conclude with a discussion of possible future directions of the mini-language approach development     

Temporal integration in Pavlovian appetitive conditioning in rats

We used an appetitive sensory preconditioning procedure to investigate temporal integration in rats in two experiments. In Phase 1, rats were presented with simultaneous compound trials on which a 10-sec conditioned stimulus (CS) X was embedded within a 60-sec CS A. In Group Early, CS X occurred during the early portion of CS A, whereas in Group Late, CS X occurred during the latter portion of CS A. In Phase 2, CS X was paired simultaneously with sucrose. On a subsequent test with CS A, the rate of magazine entries peaked during the early portions of the stimulus in Group Early and during the latter portions of the stimulus in Group Late (Experiments 1 and 2). Similar response peaks were not observed on tests with a control stimulus that had been presented in compound with a stimulus that did not signal reward (Experiment 2).     

Interactions between retroactive-interference and context-mediated treatments that impair Pavlovian conditioned responding

In Pavlovian fear conditioning, context-mediated decrements in conditioned responding (e.g., the US preexposure effect) can counteract competition between cues trained together (e.g., overshadowing). Two experiments were conducted using rats in a conditioned lick suppression preparation to determine whether context-mediated competition also counteracts competition between cues trained separately (retroactive interference, or RI). In Experiment 1, a combination of degraded contingency and RI treatments produced less of a decrement in conditioned responding than did either of those treatments alone. Experiment 2 showed that RI treatment attenuates the normally deleterious effect of trial massing. The results suggest that empirical similarities are shared by interference between cues trained apart and competition between cues trained together.     

Mobile learning in higher education: A comparative analysis of developed and developing country contexts

The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast characteristics of use and adoption of mobile learning in higher education in developed and developing countries. A comparative case study based on a survey questionnaire was conducted with 189 students (undergraduate and postgraduate) from Makerere University in Uganda and the University of Adelaide in Australia. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) was employed as the theoretical framework. The results indicated that higher education students in developed and developing countries use a range of technologies for learning, with major differences between Uganda and Australia. The study concludes that mobile learning in higher education in developed and developing country contexts is still at an experimental stage with students using mobile devices in pedagogically limited ways.     

Quantifying Qualitative Scholarship: A Fool’s Errand or a Methodological Necessity?

This paper describes our efforts to systematically generate knowledge from ethnographic and other qualitative scholarship as a way of bridging intellectual gaps found in quantitative research. We ground this scholarly endeavor in the study of gangs, which has a lengthy history in the field of criminology, yet lacks a coherent, coordinated, and comparative understanding of gang dynamics, behavior, and impacts. We discuss the importance of acknowledging the multiple and mixed methodologies used in gang scholarship and detail the inductive, deductive, and iterative process that helped us (1) develop a comprehensive coding instrument for coding a range of qualitative works, (2) establish the instrument’s inter-rater reliability, and (3) remain cognizant and reflexive about the strengths of both quantitative and qualitative research. Finally, we share the critical yet informative challenges we faced throughout the project and conclude with reflections on why the project was unsuccessful in the way we originally envisioned.     

Assessing Marijuana Use,Anxiety, and Academic Performance Among College Students

This article examines the relationship between marijuana use and anxiety symptoms among college students, with a secondary focus on marijuana use and grade point average (GPA). A secondary analysis was conducted on data obtained from the American College Health Association–National College Health Assessment. Results indicated that marijuana use was negatively associated with GPA among students with current anxiety and no formal treatment. The relationships between these variables may be more complex than previously thought.